Lunch @ Todak Seafood Restaurant in Johor Bahru. Second Visit

We went back to Todak seafood restaurant yesterday at lunch. Our intention was to pig out on the RM38 per kilo crabs we had during our previous visit. We were going to try the crabs in every cooking style - a degustation, as they say in foodie circles.



We were early and sat looking at this overhead menu board drooling at the thought of the impending crab fest.

Unfortunately, the RM38 crabs were already sold out the night before :( The next "cheapest" available crabs were the RM50 per kilo variety.

We had a quick discussion and we decided that we shall just try a few other dishes at Todak, and then proceed to the other restaurants in the same Teluk Jawa area for our crab feast.

The change of plans turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we stumbled upon some really good dishes in Todak.





This "Japanese Snail" turned out to be a crowd favourite.





The main draw of this "Japanese Snail" is it's unique texture. It is chewy and springy like a kind of natural poppy "bubble tea balls" except that it has even better mouth feel.



The "Japanese Snails" were well excuted in savoury slightly spicy sauce - all the snail's natural sweetness and unique texture were preserved for our enjoyment. This is great!





The live "Japanese Snails" before they were sent to the wok.



We asked for drunken prawns which is one of the best ways to eat fresh prawns.



We asked, "What is the size of the prawns?" The answer - "There is no fixed size, it depends on what the net catches." At Todak, they literary scoop the live prawns out from the holding nets in the sea.



True enough, the prawns were a mix of big and average, but the majority were quite huge. We were very pleased indeed.







The meaty fresh prawns cooked in drinkable herbal broth were sweet and firm.



We ordered a serving of the humble but very popular mussels.



Savoury and sweet like the "Japanese Snails" but with a softer mouthfeel, lovely in its own way.







A lot of effort and resources are devoted to keep the mussels alive and to purge it of sand. The mussels at Todak are very well cleaned. There was no trace of sand at all.



The "Kong Kong", a local sea snail which we shall try on another visit :)



As we were about to leave, we were presented this cut fresh fruit platter. We had this at our previous visit and every table was presented one. But, still we were pleasantly surprised as we ordered very few dishes this round. Thumbs up for service.



Our bill for three of us.

Even though we were initially disappointed that we could not have our much anticipated crab feast, we left Todak pleased with the alternatives we had. 

Epilogue: After our enjoyable meal at Todak we drove to all the other restaurants in the same area. Most were closed for lunch and the next "cheapest" crabs were at RM70 per kilo.

So, we left the area and went somewhere else to fill out our half full stomachs. We had roasted duck but unfortunately, we all agreed the duck was not blog worthy.... :(  oh well, some hits and some misses... that's life... eat on :)



Restaurant name: Restoran Todak
Address: 1, Kampung Orang Asli, Telok Jawa, Masai, Johor Baru
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/ZPLpx
GPS: 1.477014,103.844640
Hours: 11:30am to 11:30pm
Parking: In vacant plot in front of restaurant. Parking can be very tight during peak hours.

No pork, no lard, no Halal cert




Date visited: 3 Aug 2013, 15 Aug 2013